Significant effort has been invested over the years in improving the energy and power of electrical energy storage devices such as capacitors and batteries. These are particularly useful in short term, high energy applications such as electric vehicles or cellular communication. Warren et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,682, discloses a capacitor having an electrolyte consisting of tetraalkyammonium salts which include nitrile or dinitrile solvent and teaches that such a system provides a high dielectric constant, which is needed for capacitance. Morimoto et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,926, discloses a nonaqueous electrolyte comprising quaternary phosphonium salts in organic solvents for use in electric double layer capacitors.
A wide variety of solvents and salts are available for such use, offering specific advantages depending on the application being considered (e.g., low temperature vs. high temperature). Ionic liquids based on the imidazolium cation have recently received attention as nonaqueous electrolytes in various electrochemical devices (Koch et al., J. Electrochem. Soc. 143:155, 1996). These electrolytes have significant advantages compared to the numerous quaternary onium salts that have been previously investigated for use in carbon double-layer capacitor electrolytes (Ue et al., J.
Electrochem. Soc. 141:2989, 1994).
Electrochemical capacitors based on nonaqueous electrolytes offer greater electrochemical stability (up to 4 V) compared to aqueous systems, thereby providing greater energy storage (E=1/2CV.sup.2). However, due to the lower conductivity of nonaqueous electrolytes compared to aqueous systems, lower power capabilities are observed. In addition, with the porous materials used in electrochemical capacitors, the high viscosity typically associated with the high dielectric constant solvents used in nonaqueous electrolytes is detrimental to conductivity in porous electrodes.
Furthermore, the lower ion concentrations typically obtained with nonaqueous electrolytes result in increased electrolyte volume requirements for packaged devices. It is an object of the present invention to solve the above mentioned problems inherent in the use of conventional nonaqueous electrolytes.